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THE SURAKARTA
meant, gafe a dinner to all his friends; and after the dinner he distributed to one and to another and gafe away all that he owned; and then he went and made the box; and after it wass finished, coming out, he was seized and strangled by order of the Soesoehoenan, as he had expected. Iss it not a bretty story?"
"And the emerald is all that they say of it, Max?"
"That, my friendt, I do not know; for I haf nefer seen it. But in Sumatra I met once a man who had seen it, and he said it iss not, but that there iss a small flaw in it. Whether that iss so or not iss something which I would like to know."
"I did not mean that, Max; I meant, the Javanese still—at least so I have been told—hold that strange superstition that the
